The Silver Screen Oasis

In case anyone's interested, the first trailer is up for the Coen Brothers' remake of True Grit, with Jeff Bridges as Rooster Cogburn.

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It looks good - and though a good trailer does not a good movie make, I like the tone and style of the trailer. It reminds me of Days of Heaven.

It looks like the remake is taking a very different direction, which is super. They aren't basing it on the larger than life persona of Rooster Cogburn, John Wayne, and the oddness of Kim Darby. It looks like it is concentrating solely on story and it has an almost literary feel, full of atmosphere. In other words, it could work!

I guess we can all laugh at this prediction on Christmas day.

Trailer looks great, and the Coen bros. have a pretty dang good track record (I'm still laughin' at O Brother, whenever I think about it) . .
I'll likely go see it, based on that, but Jeffy Boy, them is a mighty big set o' britches to fill, and I'm doubting Bostonian Matt Damon is going to find quite the all natural groove Glen Campbell did as Texas Ranger LaBoeuf . . and Josh, are you just all nasty-foul like that 'cause nobody turned out to see Jonah Hex? I tried to, I swear, but it was on the back-end of a double bill, & no matinees!
I'm a workin' man!

There was enough material in the original book of True Grit by Charles Portis for three movies. The character of 14 year old Mattie (Kim Darby in the original film) was much more interesting than she ultimately seemed to be in the '68 movie, and she was the center of the novel, rather than Rooster Cogburn. I think this may be a pretty good movie--though I wouldn't be surprised if the Henry Hathaway version and Wayne's portrayal casts a long shadow over this revision.

Maybe I should take a peek at Viva Zapata, this is one film that I have never seen, mainly because of my dislike of Brando. IMHO Kazans' best works wer A Tree That grows in Brooklyn and A Face in the Crowd.

moirafinnie wrote:There was enough material in the original book of True Grit by Charles Portis for three movies. The character of 14 year old Mattie (Kim Darby in the original film) was much more interesting than she ultimately seemed to be in the '68 movie, and she was the center of the novel, rather than Rooster Cogburn. I think this may be a pretty good movie--though I wouldn't be surprised if the Henry Hathaway version and Wayne's portrayal casts a long shadow over this revision.

Good points, M; looking back, I do believe that reading Portis' novel @ age 15 was the best time at which I could have encountered it, even though it was narrated by an equally young female protagonist; more bizarrely, it was recommended to me by my good old risque, bare-knuckle Uncle Hollis, who called it one of his "best reads ever", which seemed odd coming from a man whose secular reading tastes were usually limited to dog-eared mapbacks by Hammond Innes, Erskine Caldwell & Max Brand, not to mention his secret library of "Tijuana bibles".

It's an interesting prospect, it sounds like they are taking it in a different direction to the Wayne movie, I suppose we'll have to wait and see.

It looks very good to me. Matt Damon looks lovely....

I am a Coen Bros. fan. Miller's Crossing is still one of my fav movies of all time.

I like the trailer. I hope the film is as good, if not better, than the trailer. Jeff Bridges looks awesome. The young girl looks good, too. And Josh Brolin, he looks really mad.

I think you are right Anne. I hate to say it, but the outside wrapping of the original movie is not nearly as good as John Wayne. I think I am looking forward to the remake a lot now that I think about it. It's a shame they couldn't get John Wayne for the remake, but if I had to go with someone from our time, it would be Jeff Bridges. He's really about the only old school movie star around still getting hired and doing incredible work.

Wayne, and maybe the story, were the best parts of the original. Replace Darby and most certainly Campbell and they sure would have had something better.

I wonder if they'll keep Cogburn's humor about it or play it straight? There is most likely a first rate drama underneath all the facade of the original.

movieman1957 wrote:
I wonder if they'll keep Cogburn's humor about it or play it straight? There is most likely a first rate drama underneath all the facade of the original.

As I recall it, Cogburn's character from the novel was a towering, glowering, moody, perpetually drunken braggart, not above brutalizing prisoners, or stealing from suspects & corpses, and often falling back on vulgar buffoonery when failing Mattie's standards of heroism and/or manhood.
And believe it or not, Portis' depiction of LaBoeuf, the Texas Ranger, was left pretty shallow & simplistic, and was actually fleshed-out & expanded for the role in the film, making for a fairly accurate, albeit instinctive, portrayal from Campbell.

Confession time.

True Grit is the first western I remember seeing in a theater. (I may have seen another western first, but this is the first one I *remember.*) It also was the cause of my first actor crush. (A lot of crushes have gone by since.) No, not John Wayne. At that point in time for me John Wayne was just this big, old, fat guy. (I am much smarter these days about John Wayne.) Yes, my first actor crush was Glenn Campbell. Oh, did I have it bad for him! Not only did I think about him in the movie all the time, but I bought all his records and listened to them over and over. Since Campbell is a terrific guitar player and has a beautiful voice, and those songs included classics like "Gentle on My Mind," "Wichita Lineman," "Galveston," "By the Time I Get to Phoenix" and "Dreams of an Everyday Housewife" and of course the movie's title tune "True Grit," I had a pretty good time. :)

I haven't seen True Grit in several years (the DVD is around here somewhere) and I don't even remember what about the character or Campbell's performance captured my tween heart but it must have been something. I'm going to have to dig out the DVD and watch it again before the remake shows up.

Nowadays I am a Matt Damon fan, so I am looking forward to seeing what he does with LaBeouf. (Possibly an ancestor of Shia?) :)